Publish your book on Kindle

While the exact numbers aren’t public, Amazon.com’s Kindle electronic book reader has been a huge success. And the way Amazon has things set up, it is silly for anyone who has a book not to convert it to the Kindle. Here are the steps:

1. Make sure that your manuscript is in a format acceptable to Amazon: HTML; PDF; plain text; MS Word (.doc); or Mobi (.mobi or .prc). Also, for marketing purposes, make sure you have links to your website within your book.
2. Head over to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform site. Fill out the paperwork. Follow the instructions to prepare your book for conversion.
3. You’ll need a cover image that’s at least 500 pixels on its longest side, TIFF or JPEG. And if you have any color images, convert them to simple grayscale before uploading; the Kindle can only display 4 shades of gray.
4. Your share of any sales is 35%. You set the price of your book. The vast majority of Kindle titles are around $10, but they range from free to $100+.

That’s it! Now, you might think that 35% isn’t much; after all, if you publish a book yourself, you get to keep the entire sale price. But consider: From your sale price, you must pay your production costs, your marketing costs, and any other costs. On Kindle, Amazon does it all for you. All you do is upload your book.

By all means, do good keyword research and make sure your book will be found by people looking for it.

Your Kindle income stream can become a nice addition to your information publishing empire.